Two Cities: A Love Story

By John Edgar Wideman

Book Overview

A redemptive, healing novel, Two Cities brings to brilliant culmination the themes John Edgar Wideman has developed in fourteen previous acclaimed books. It is a story of bridges -- bridges spanning the rivers of Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, bridges arching over the rifts that have divided our communities, our country, our hearts. Narrated in the bluesy voices of its three main characters, Two Citiesis a simple love story, but it is also about the survival of an endangered black urban community and the ways that people discover for redeeming themselves in a society that is failing them. With its indelible images of confrontation and outrage, matched in equal measure by lasting impressions of hope, Two Cities is a compassionate, lacerating, and nourishing novel.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0618001859
• ISBN13: 9780618001859
• Release Date: September 1999
• Publisher: Mariner Books
• Length: 256 Pages
• Weight: 0.60 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.5" x 8.4"

Customer Reviews

This book is tight

John Edgar Wideman's incredible book two cities makes an exceptional use of language to deal with trauma and perspective. This is one of the most touching love stories I've ever read, mostly because of the way wideman seamlessly shifts perspective from one lover to the other, a choice which makes the two characters bleed into each other. As anyone who's ever been in love knows, sometimes you blend together so well its hard to tell where one person ends and the other begins. On top of that Wideman takes on the limitations of art in decpicting the depth and complexity of human feeling, ironic in a book that is so brimming with passion and sentiment.